Fewer than 100 Rice’s whales exist in the Gulf of Mexico, making it one of the most endangered marine mammals on Earth.

Its continued existence is threatened by offshore energy production, environmentalists say, and a push is underway to limit offshore oil and gas leases from further threatening their reduced habitat.

Discovered only two years ago, the 60,000-pounds whale’s fate is thrust into a hot political debate over offshore energy activity that pits environmental interests and the Biden Administration against energy producers and Republicans in Congress who represent the Gulf Coast states.

WHALE Act

The latest issue revolves around the introduction Monday of federal legislation in the Senate called the Wading Off Hostile Administrative Leader Efforts (WHALE) Act. That bill, sponsored by Republicans including Alabama Senators Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville, prevents the U.S. Department of Commerce and Interior from issuing maritime rules related to the Rice’s whale.

That includes implementing restrictions on vessel speeds, which environmental organizations say are necessary to prevent one of the whale’s No. 1 killers: Vessel strikes.

“The Biden Administration is continually putting a left-wing agenda ahead of common sense and the well-being of hardworking American families,” Britt said in a news release. “Prioritizing partisan activism over economic opportunity and domestic energy dominance is irresponsible and further fueling persistent inflation.”

The proposed Senate legislation does the following:

• Prevents the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior from issuing rules or offshore oil and gas lease requirements or recommendations that establish vessel speed or vessel operational restrictions.
• Requires the Departments to complete a study demonstrating that any mitigation protocols developed to protect the whales will not have a negative impact on offshore energy production and generation, military activities, commercial and recreational fishing, maritime commerce, and supply chains.
• Requires the Secretary of Commerce to develop mitigation protocols that make use of real-time location monitoring and location information.
• Prohibits mitigation protocols and forbids evening transit or vessel speed or operational restrictions.

The Senate bill follows the August introduction of the Gulf of Mexico Commerce Protection Act in the U.S. House. Sponsored by Republican U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, the House version is similar to the WHALE Act in that it prohibits the federal government from developing protocols to reduce vessel speeds and other whale protections.

Slow ships

Environmental groups are blasting both proposals. A representative from one of the groups on Monday called the Senate bill, including its a name – WHALE Act — “astonishing in its cynicism.”

They also point to a 2020 Biological Opinion from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that found mortalities from vessel strikes are likely to exceed – by more than ten times – what the species can sustain.

“Three years ago, the government found that vessel collisions alone are driving this species, the Gulf’s only great whale, to extinction,” said Michael Jasny, director of marine mammal protection at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “But this bill would prohibit any meaningful action to prevent collisions; instead, it offers pipe-dream technological solutions that aren’t funded and don’t exist.”

Jasny said both the House and Senate bills require NOAA to develop “near-real-time monitoring systems” for Rice’s whale. He said that the system does not exist and would likely take years to develop. He also said it would not be an effective substitute for requiring a reduction in vessel speeds.

Last year, more than 100 marine scientists, including some of the country’s experts on marine mammal conservation, called for vessels to slow down as they traversed through the whales’ Gulf habitat.

“With only about 50 Rice’s whales left, losing a single whale would be catastrophic, and we have to do everything we can to protect each one,” said Kristen Monsell, Oceans Legal Director with the Center for Biological Diversity in Oakland.

“Slowing ships down in certain places is not an outlandish ask,” she said. “The highly-profitable oil and gas industry can afford to go a little slower to save the only whale species relaying entirely on the United States for protection.”

Offshore concerns

Republicans, in their news release, referred to the groups pushing for the restrictions as “radical environmental interest groups” that are petitioning NOAA seeking to establish year-round vessel speed restriction zones and other mitigation efforts to protect Rice’s whales.

The Biden Administration has pitch protecting much of the Gulf – from Texas to Florida, including Alabama – and that includes potentially limiting offshore fossil fuel activity. The administration sought to remove 6 million acres of habitat from an offshore oil lease sale that was originally scheduled for last week.

A federal judge in Louisiana ordered the Biden Administration last month to hold the lease sale, with all 6 million acres. An appeals court last week granted the Biden Administration a delay to hold the sale on Nov. 8.

Republicans fear the Biden Administration will withdraw the acreage in the next five-year offshore oil and gas leasing plan. They are also fearful over a reduction in oil and gas leases affecting an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people along the Gulf Coast.

The reduced leasing could also lead to a reduction in the amount of GOMESA funding that is earmarked back to the Gulf States including Alabama. In recent years, due to an influx of offshore oil and gas leases, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announces millions of dollars invested into developing parks, fishing piers and other eco-tourism attractions in Mobile and Baldwin counties. The most recent announcement included $67 million for 27 projects in both counties.

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Alabama State Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, said while the $60 million or more generated by GOMESA is “a lot of money” for the coastal counties, it pales in comparison to what he fears will be an increase in fuel costs through limiting offshore activity.

“We need domestic energy production from a national security stand point and to keep energy prices as low as possible,” Elliott said. “I want to keep that (whale) species alive and for it to thrive, but as with any conservation measure, there are tradeoffs. We have to make sure they balanced against the good. There is a point where one outweighs the other.”

The spotlights remains on the Biden administration’s energy policy, ahead of the 2024 campaign. The administration is planning to hold three offshore oil lease sales through 2029, which national media reports suggest is the lowest number of auctions in the program’s history. The plan, introduced last week by the Interior Department, includes no lease sale taking place in 2024. That marks the first time in the modern program’s four decades that companies will be unable to bid for parcels in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.